In her life, Pinkie Pie had faced many challenges. She had faced hydras and ants and parasprites and housefires and fire ants and parahydras. She had bourn scorn and spite and hatred and ponies who couldn't decide exactly how much frosting they wanted on their cupcakes even though they were just going to eat the frosting anyway and it didn't really matter. What really mattered was the strawberry on the cupcake. The strawberry was the heart of the cupcake – the soul – but some ponies just couldn't see the strawberry for the frosting.
Vaguely, she was aware that she was getting distracted. More pressingly, she was aware that she really, really wanted cupcakes. For a long moment, she pondered. Would she do her job, or fill her stomach? It was never an easy choice, but today it was even harder because today was important. Today was the day that she – of course.
She didn't need to decide. Today was one of those rare, perfect days – the kind that just didn't happen too often these days. Today, she could fill her belly, replenish her smile, and perform her super-duper important duties all at once!
Pinkie Pie grinned. She had never faced a challenge quite like this one – but she had faced lots of other challenges and done okay, and they had almost all been less likely to produce delicious treats for her, if only by a little – except for that adventure in the candy mountains, but those had been dark days. Dark days she preferred not to remember.
Not like today. Today was a bright day, in large part because of the flames periodically erupting from the various pots and pans precariously positioned all around her. Pots and pans that housed simmering, delicious hope. Hope for the future. The next generation – a generation shaped by her. Not literally, like Rocky or Mr. Cookie, but in spirit, like Granny Pie and the Cakes had helped to shape her.
Like the Cakes would never be able to shape their own children. But that wasn't the kind of thinking she needed to be doing today. Her thoughts needed to be happy and clever and focused and all those other things! She wasn't entirely sure she was capable of most of those things, but she figured that if she made up for the cleverness and focus and not having any clue where to start with happiness and enthusiasm things couldn't possibly go wrong.
She spun on her hooves, taking in the chaotic kitchen all around her. In the corner Pound was huddled over a huge pot, stirring some sort of mystery concoction that she was pretty sure had started out as a batch of cookies but was now some kind of soup. Her grin grew wider as the perfect little pegasus cast a nervous glance at her, and she gave a nod of encouragement. He was so inventive – and really, that was the mark of a good baker. Talent could be learned, or stolen, or bought or baked or obtained in questionable deals made in the dead of night with passing unicorns on the outskirts of a tiny rock farm...well, there were lots of ways to get good at baking.
On the other side of the kitchen, whistling quietly to herself as she worked, was Pumpkin – ingredients danced through the air, moving in time to the music. There were radishes and pickles and a month old banana and the leftovers from the pie Pinkie had gotten from Applejack the day before, all topped with lemon and tomato spread. Pinkie wasn't quite sure what Pumpkin was making – the unicorn had insisted it was a secret – but she was pretty sure that it couldn't possibly be as disgusting as it looked or smelt, and that could only be a good thing!
She let her eyes drift closed, taking in the aromas of the questionably baked goods around her, and she was happy. For the first time since the Cakes had died, the twins seemed content. They weren't bakers yet – they weren't even close to bakers yet – but that was okay, because they were smiling – little, hesitant smiles, but real ones.
And with her as their teacher, they would become great – they would become bakers, or anything else they wanted to be, and they would be proud of themselves just like she was proud of them. Like their parents had been proud of them. Like their parents had been proud of her.
Today they were bakers, and she was their teacher. But more importantly, today they were a family. And it was enough. For the first time since she had become the guardian of the two perfect ponies, Pinkie Pie felt sure she had done a good job.
Today, she had done herself proud.
The Prompt: Back to school.
Special Rule: Twilight is not going to magic kindergarten.
Ahhhhh, it feels good to be writing again. Between finals and complete failure to produce anything whenever I tried to write, it's been too long. This particular story is the prequel to Pinkie Pie Style. I think it turned out pretty well. Hope you enjoy it.
Very nice!
This is one of your better short pieces really, mostly because of the alliteration and the bit where she went off on the ways one could get talent... which explains how she suddenly became so good at it, even though her cutie-mark isn't directly baking related (as we saw with Applejack at the rodeo, you can be really good at something without a cutie mark in it, but you won't be the best, at least that's my theory about why she placed in everything, which is impressive, but didn't win a single event-- they all went to specialists in that event).
Disturbing on a certain level. What happened to the Cakes? Who was that mystery unicorn? What was the price (for magic always exacts its price) that Pinkie paid for her talent? Everything about this chapter has disturbing and dark undertones and the hints of something terrible having happened and Pinkie, being Pinkie, trying to create a positive spin on it all.
It just goes to show that, when writing horror, the unstated and the unseen that is implied, so that one can see the indistinct shadow of a monster but not its location or true nature, is so much more effective than brute, unimaginative gore. The reader's mind fills in the blanks and provides the dark shapes of its own personal monsters, so much more effective than anything another person's mind can provide. It is this concept that makes Silent Hill 2 one of the greatest horror stories in modern culture and you seem to have used the same methods here.
I love the echoes back to the previous piece set in this continuity, where the Cake twins set the bakery on fire for the umpteenth time that month. Is this before or after that story? I wanna say this is set before, as Mr. and Mrs. Cakes' deaths seem to be more recent here, but I'm not 100% sure.
1686095 Thanks!
1686372 I'm glad you like it. It's kind of funny to me - the stories on here that people like best are always the ones I put almost no thought into and just blurt out. I should do it more often. And I'd agree with you to an extent re: cutie marks, but not entirely - I can accept Pinkie being one o' the best bakers because her talent is making ponies smile, and also parties - treats are a huge part of the kind of part Pinkie throws, and so for her to be the best at parties she'd almost HAVE to be a wonderful baker.
As for whether it explains anything...heh, make your own call then. I'm not entirely convinced it wasn't just Pinkie rambling on about things that never happened.
1686963 Hehe. I'm glad you think it was effective - to be honest though, Pinkie's thought patterns here are a double edged sword. Her positiveness does cover the darker notes a touch, but at the same time it probably overemphasizes the sillier ones, if they happened at all - I'll probably never reveal exactly what happened in the candy mountains, but it's not likely as bad as Pinkie believes - and I'm not entirely convinced that her rambling about talent wasn't just her getting carried away. I don't know, though: Pinkie gets away from me, sometimes.
That is definitely how I try to write, however - I think it applies to most things, not just horror, and I try to keep that in mind. I'm glad you think it worked well, here.
1687019 I AM A BAKER, AND TODAY I HAVE DONE MYSELF PROUD!
1687230 This is indeed a prequel to that one - I'm not sure how much by, but I'm going to say several months at least. This is the very first baking lesson that Pinkie ever gives the twins, and yeah - it's set not all that long, relatively speaking, after the deaths of Mr and Mrs Cake. Glad you enjoyed it, DB.
1688246
While it's better than most of these there were a few that were much better than this. Those might have been the ones you put effort into that also turned out well. But sometimes it's the little things that matter, like I said a few outstanding turns of phrase can make a big difference in a short piece and those probably don't stem from your thought about plot. The latter would make more difference if they were longer.